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Coming up, I'm going to tell you the number one killer of all of our creativity and then
some interesting data, Gen Z and boomers finally have something in common about work,
but what is it and is it good?
We'll break it down.
Let's go.
Helping you break through what's holding you back so that you're winning at work and in life.
Let's talk about creativity.
Now, let's just set the context.
Everybody listening to me, everybody watching me is creative.
Some of you are going, Ken.
I live in spreadsheets.
I am a number cruncher.
I'm a doer task per your creative.
Everybody's creative.
Everybody.
So let's just get that over with.
You came into this world, hardwired with imagination, you're creative.
All right.
So what is this killer of creativity?
Because we've got to identify it and now take it head on.
And this may challenge some of you in ways you've not been challenged before, but I would ask
that you allow me to provoke your thought for a few minutes.
This blocker of creativity sneaks up on us.
This blocker of creativity is popular.
This blocker of creativity is recommended by wise people or supposed wise at people.
What is it?
It's conformity.
Conformity is the number one killer of creativity.
And you've got to be able to see it in order to root it out.
If you're unaware of it in your everyday activity, you have no idea why you may be being held back.
It's conformity.
So let's go back to our childhood if we could for just a moment,
because this gets taught to us very early on.
Conformity is thrust upon us at our most innocent and imaginative season of our life
when we're young, child, imagination, exploding.
It's paint by numbers or the coloring book.
I always love this paint by numbers example, because the coloring book
addresses conformity, but just barely.
The coloring book gives you conformity in that it has a picture that's drawn out.
And it is encouraged that you stay between the lines, at least parents and teachers.
Stay between the lines, color between the lines.
And you know what's funny?
They don't do that for kindergartners and toddlers, because you're picking your kids up from
maybe a church Sunday school or church summer camp program or just when you're pre-school
or in those early days of kindergarten.
You know the parents that are always like, they show up
and the picture, maybe it's a picture of a dog, and it just looks like this.
It just looks like this.
We all know it is like the kids just like, oh look, he colored the dog.
And the kids just took the crayon and was like, ahhhh, that's normal.
And as a parent, you're kind of like, oh, oh, that's our kids picture.
That's great. I wonder if he was angry when he did that, right?
And so this is when this sets in.
Why?
Because the picture is uniform and thus our brains as adults are thinking conforming,
uniformity, conformity, they're all working together.
And so we're going, oh, wow, junior needs to learn how to color between the lines.
So we're going to work on that.
But does he?
Where does this lead?
So that's your traditional coloring book.
Paint by Numbers is really, really
the clearest example of teaching conformity at early age.
Because with Paint by Numbers, I still have the drawing, let's say, we'll stay with the dog.
But what I don't have is the freedom to color whatever color I want,
because the Paint by Numbers tells me, well, you need to do blue for number two.
Green for number three, and so on and so on and so on.
So they've given us a picture, but now they've taken all the creativity away,
because they've said you need to paint this part of the picture with the number on it,
this color.
And now we have conformity.
This is best illustrated with this great Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.
We're going to put this on the screen and I'm going to read it to those of you who can't see it.
It's got little Calvin, the little boy looking at his buddy, the tiger, Hobbes.
He says, look, Hobbes, I got a Paint by Numbers kit.
It's really fun.
Well, the tiger, Hobbes, it looks at Calvin and says,
but you're not painting in the lines and you're not using the colors that correspond to the numbers.
Way to go, Mr. Responsibility, our friend, the tiger.
So Calvin, the next frame looks down at his art.
And then he looks back at Hobbes and says, if I did that,
I'd get the picture they show on the box.
And then Hobbes, the tiger says, ah, and that's the brilliance of that cartoon.
Calvin didn't want to paint by Numbers.
He's sworn to paint.
Hobbes says, wait a second, you're not doing it the way they told you to do it.
And Calvin looks back and goes, yeah, you're right.
But why would I want to paint something that's already on the box?
Someone else did that.
Brilliant.
So in life, let's pull out of this for a moment and let's talk about real world.
In education, in finance, in work, those three areas dominate our lives.
We are told to conform.
We're told to conform.
Got to have a resume.
Got to put all this stuff on your resume.
Got to have a degree.
Got to get this on your SAT or ACT.
Got to do this.
Got to do this.
Got to do this.
Why?
Let's paint by Numbers.
That's what we deem is successful and worthy.
Now this works for people
who really naturally do okay.
Inside the lines.
Who really appreciate the paint by Numbers.
Tell me what to do, when to do, how to do it.
A lot of people like that.
A lot of people, whether they like it or not, thrive within it, they can adapt.
But there are a lot of kids who become adults that were like me.
Whether you have a learning challenge or full blown disability
that make you different and you can't do the one size fits all, you get marginalized.
So how do we make sure that in every area of our life,
we're doing what we believe is right, what we want to do?
Very simple.
Get out of blank sheet of paper and this is a metaphor.
I want you to picture your life in every area, relationally,
professionally, physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, whatever.
And just go, what's the life that I want?
Where am I now?
Where do I want to be?
In any of those areas and get out of blank piece of paper and it's metaphorical,
but you could actually do it, go write it out.
This is who I want to be.
Why I want to be this?
This is what I want to do.
Why I want to do it?
That's true creativity.
Is charting or drawing or painting from a blank canvas, the life that you desire.
After all, that's true art is my interpretation on something else.
I could certainly be inspired by something else.
But what I do is my life, my version, and it's quite frankly what the world needs for me,
because I am created uniquely to fill a unique role in this world.
I mean, somebody needs me to show up and be me and I'm going to do it and you need to as well.
If you feel trapped in a dead end job, know this, you don't have to stay there.
You're meant for so much more.
One of our listeners, Michael W went through Betheltech's nine month tech bootcamp and got
the foundation he needed to land a great job here at Ramsey Solutions within a month of graduation.
You can find something better, a great tech job that you love.
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Just go to Betheltech.net slash Ken Coleman to get started.
Rules and restrictions apply.
That's Betheltech.net slash Ken Coleman.
♪♪♪
Helping you get unstuck from whatever is keeping you stuck.
It's usually fear and doubt more on that in a second, but hey, first, we are growing and I'm grateful
for that. For those of you that are watching on YouTube, listen, the way you can help us continue
to grow is if you're participating and watching this stuff, give us a like. That's the way the
world works. It's an algorithm. I don't do it to be famous or cool. Look at me. I got no chance
anyway. So you know, I'm the real deal, but I'd love for you to like our clips and it helps us
grow because I'm here for one reason. I want people to be able to get clear on who they are
and what they want to do and I want it to be confident to do it. That's it.
And that's why I'm here because the world needs your contribution. So if you're listening via your
favorite podcast app, give us a follow. That is the same algorithm that works for us and we would
appreciate it. Speaking of my mission being about helping people getting clear on who they are
and what they want to do and then having the confidence to step out and do that, if you are
stuck, you're just not something's got you stuck. And by the way, does not have to be just professionally
stuck. You're stuck. You got some fear about something in the future. You got some doubt about
something. Fear is I am worried about something bad happening. Doubt is I'm just not believing
that something good that I want to happen will happen. You just need to be encouraged.
I see to be in a room where I could feel like I'm not the only one that's trying to make a
difference in my life and the lives of others and I'm kind of on this slog and I just need
some encouragement. I think our event breakthrough is for you, maybe for your friends and family.
If three dates come into you, Chicago, Illinois, May 16th, Atlanta, Georgia, May 18th, Dallas,
Texas, May 23rd, I'm going to be speaking on how to always have the confidence that you need when you
need it most. It's a formula and you can use it any area of your life where you need to break
through to get through something and get over a hump. And then I'm going to be taking questions
live from the crowd intimate settings and we're just going to do a good old fashioned Q&A and
there's great power when we're all in the room together. So that's the event. It's called Breakthrough
Ken Coleman dot com slash events. Ken Coleman dot com slash events to get all the details.
Chicago, May 16th, Atlanta, May 18th, Dallas, Texas, May 23rd. All right. Well, Gen Z and millennials,
while very different generations, while having their very unique demographic nuances,
they are aligned on how they view work in this particular way. And this is discouraging,
but not surprising. From 2019 to 2022, according to my friends at Gallup,
the share of people under 35 who reported being engaged with their jobs dropped from 37
to 33%. The lowest level since 2011, at the same time, the percentage of people who reported
being actively engaged rose to excuse me, actively disengaged is all negative, actively disengaged
rose from 17% from 12%. So disengagement is increasing, engagement is dropping. It's all
heading towards the same direction. And this is bad for companies, which means it's going to be bad
for the economy, which means it's going to be bad for you. In other words, how many of you remember
being in school where one problem student or person on the team got everybody else in trouble.
Now I played sports growing up and I came from an old school group of coaches and Bob's in the
control room today. Bob, I know you and I both played sports growing up. We come from an old
school era and I was in an era that when if one guy on the team was slacking on the running,
we all had to run more. I'm busting my butt, Bob. I want to get done. I want to run in
puke. Thank you very much. And there's my buddy over there who's not giving his all and the coach
goes, if everybody's not giving it, they're all everybody's running more. You know what I'm
talking about? We experienced that, you know, those are the good old days where like you develop
grit because they forced it on you. You know what I'm talking about? Back in that day,
if you threw up running, you kept running. You were running through your vomit. That's
thought it was like, all right, I'm grossing some of you out. But that's good old fashioned grit,
Alex. I know you don't like the image, but that's what it was. You were expected, Bob. If you were
going to chuck it, you chucked it while you were running. So you had an option, chuck on the guy
to my left or chuck on the guy on my right, or I just chuck going forward, run into it. And that's
what you did. So how in the world did I get on that? Sometimes even I don't know how I get on these
rabbit trails. Right? But the point I was making, oh, I know how I got there. It's that
when you have millennials and Gen Zers increasingly disengaged at work, they're dragging everybody
down just like the teammate did. The teammate wasn't giving them all. So everybody got punished.
If you got a teammate who's out of shape and can't defend in crunch time, the team loses because
he didn't suck it up. That's why the coach did that, by the way. So I want to make sure you
understand this. Don't hear this data and go, well, you know, it is what it is, can't know it isn't.
This is going to affect all of us. Gallup estimates that it costs the global economy,
$7.8 trillion every year in lost productivity, excuse me, this last year in lost productivity.
And then you got a lot of young workers who are stepping away because they're looking for
fulfillment. They're not disengaged because they're lazy and chiff-less. See, that's what you got
to be careful of. So when I put data out like this, if you're not careful, guys like in my
generation be like, I'm lazy, snowflake millennials. That's a generalization. And quite frankly, it's
wrong. Here's what's going on. What's causing the disengagement? Here we go. They don't feel cared
about. They don't have someone who's encouraging their development. They don't feel like they have
opportunities to learn and grow. They don't have a best friend at work. And they don't believe that
their opinions count. Now you just roll through that list and that is not limited to millennials
and Gen Zers. But now you try to picture showing up every day in this environment. Let me say it
again. And if you have to close your eyes, yeah, don't feel cared for. No one's encouraged me to
get better. No opportunities to learn anything different, doing with it. I don't have a really
good friend at work. And I just don't think my opinion matters. Come on. It's an invitation to leave.
And that's what they're doing. So leaders have to understand this, but you have to understand
this about you as well. If you're not in a leadership position, you've got to understand
why just a second, how engaged am I? Where am I at on these? I mean, this is really a good checklist.
And this is from the data, by the way. Are you in an office environment where you feel like the
company leaders care about you as a person? No, it doesn't have to be best friends. You know,
it's not that it just needs to be that they're aware of who you are and what's going on.
That they care about you when you've had a rough day, they've stepped up for you. You know when
you're cared for. Do you have opportunities to learn and then do something with that knowledge?
So what are the what are some of the factors that have contributed to this? Well, first,
let's we have to always start with leadership. You look at those factors that I just listed out.
It is the leaders responsibility to make people feel cared for. It is the leaders responsibility
to challenge and push people to learn, grow, and be able to do something with it. It is the
leaders responsibility to create an environment where coworkers like each other. It is the leaders
responsibility to make sure that everybody's heard. So it starts with leaders. Now, let's look at
what workers are doing and why they're doing it. A big part of this was the mass shift to work
from home. It's shifting back now. The other thing is is all of the digital tools like Slack
and text and everything else in Zoom, we've taken away the personal connection.
And part of the reason you're not engaged is because you're not acting like a human.
All right, question time. I want you to answer this as you're listening or watching to me,
wherever you are. I want you to truly give this just a 10 second thought.
And I want you to just verbalize it in your head or out loud or write it down. Here's the question.
What is the biggest question that people wrestle with?
What's the biggest question in our lives as we are growing up, maybe in our middle age?
What's the question? And I want you to say it your way, because there's no, by the way,
there's no right or wrong answer. I'm going to give you what I think the answer is and I'm going to
give it to you the way that I think we ask it at its core. But I want you to think that what is
the haunting question? Some of you are thinking, am I loved? That's up there.
Some of you are asking or some of you said, it's do I matter? That's up there.
Some of you said, why am I here? Why am I here? Like not where you stand, but why am I here? Like,
what's this whole human life global? We got planets. I'm on this planet. There's a bunch of
them out there. Where do I fit in this gigantic universe? I think that's closer.
The way I would word it is. What am I supposed to do in my life? I think it's
the biggest question and I'll tell you why. It is the question that
doesn't have to be taught. Am I loved? Do I matter? Those don't have to be taught.
And neither does the question. What am I doing in my life? Why am I here? What should I do in my
life? What is the teach you that? So where does it come from? So however it's worded,
wherever you get to, what's more important is what is it the source of that question?
And here it is. I believe that we are different from the rest of the living world.
You got animals and you got humans and now we have robots.
And there's some pretty awesome animals. Pretty smart, pretty fierce.
And there's some pretty crazy robots that are building this AI stuff is mind-blowing.
But you know what those two creatures don't have that humans have? A soul, a spirit.
And I make no bonds. I'm not going to go off into this and you can disagree with me all you want
to because it's a major point but rather minor in this discussion. And that is this. I believe
that we have a creator and that we were created to be creative, to contribute.
And the data bears it out.
People that are unhappy not doing something they enjoy at work live on average 10 years less
than people who are happy and creating and doing something contributing something that they go,
okay, I got some meaning out of this and some happiness. Go look at the data on retirees
who go from working and engaging and doing something to just sedentary and stopping their
whole body collapses. Now, why do I bring this up? If you agree with me, despite the source
that what is different between us and robots and animals is that we have a soul and a spirit
that longs to experience love and experience challenge and experience achievement. If you believe that,
then you then have to say, huh, that's why we asked the question, what am I supposed to do?
We long to make our mark. I was telling Alex this and immediately that I think if you just
break it down to that simplicity, everybody kind of wants us to make their mark. I want to know that
I made a difference that I loved well, that other people loved me, that I did a few things
where people went, ah, now boy, wait a go, kitty boy, you did something good today. See, we all
want to experience that. I want to be loved, but I also want somebody to go, you did a good job
there. That's pretty good. And so that's what drives the question. Now, the problem is
is that we have made advances in technology that are mind-blowing. I think of the car.
I think of a plane which led to spaceships and fighter jets. And I think of computers and now AI.
It's mind-blowing. We teach math. We teach science. We teach English. But you know what we don't do?
Institutionaly. And as a society, there is not a construct even in all of the education we have
in this country and around the world. You know what we don't teach? How to learn about you.
We don't teach kids how to learn about themselves.
We put them in the school system. And from the minute their little five-year-old brains get in there,
all they're trying to do is just hide, eat in the crayons. And you're trying to teach them
how to get uniform and conform and answer questions the rest of their life.
And we unwittingly beat the curiosity out of them. Let me put it to you this way. Watch this two-minute
drill. Here's what's happening in our world. A kid is born. They're naturally imaginative.
And the minute they begin to talk, they ask questions. They ask hundreds of questions a day.
They drive you poor parents nuts. Why? Are they trying to be obnoxious? No. They're trying to get
to the bottom of everything. They're learning everything. Everything's like this. Everything's new.
They're wondering. I wonder why this works. And not only are they wondering, they are experiencing
wonder. Wow. Remember the first time you do that stupid finger trick and show a kid, look,
I pulled my finger off. Are you steal their nose? The kids like this.
They're not idiots. They're creatures of wonder. Now watch, stay with you. It's going to go fast.
They get into the school system. They get turned into answer givers, test takers. By the time they
reach the eighth grade, the average American students only ask you two to three questions a day.
By the time they reach the ninth grade, all the cultural pressure, principal,
guidance counselor, coaches, teachers, parents, siblings, hey, you got to get good grades.
You got to get a good GPA. You got to study hard. Take that pre SAT or pre ACT so that you have a
good GPA and a good standardized test score so that colleges will accept you.
So now my acceptance, the most important thing in my life, everybody's telling me I got to do this
well and I'm going to get accepted based on how many answers I get right. So we beat the
curiosity out of them. In other words, they go from wondering to wandering through an assembly
line system. They got to pick a school. They got to pick a major and find a job all before their
brains are fully developed. Twenty three, I think it is for women. Twenty five, twenty six for men.
Let's be honest. I don't think my brain's ever going to finish developing. It's underdeveloped.
That's for all you women out there to say, amen. Why do I run you through that? That is the process
of life. It's super high way and we are taking our kids and we're taking them from wondering
to wandering and they end up calling my show in their mid thirties and forties going,
I don't know what I want to do with my life or I'm not happy. So it's time to stop. That's the
problem with the system. It is outdated. It was created to literally build workers who were happy
going into a factory and doing the same job all over the place. Tell me my command. Yes, sir.
Yes, ma'am. What do I need to know? What do I need to do? Give me a report card and that's why we
have the way the way we work. That's why it was created. So parents, you're sitting there going,
kid, I believe this. You're right. What do I do? I've created a curriculum for your child to go
through it. You can go with it at home. It is from our Ramsey Ed team. It's Foundations and Career
Discovery. It comes with the student assessment that will allow your student to take an assessment
and for the first time in their life, maybe able to clarify with you what they're talented at,
what really lights their heart up and then what motivates them and those three pieces
come together for a purpose statement and a path forward. Get it right now at ramsysolutions.com.
The Foundations and Career Discovery parents help your kids discover their future.
Thanks for listening to the Ken Coleman Show. For more, you can find the show on demand wherever
you listen to podcasts and watch the show on YouTube. You can also find Ken across all social
media by following at Ken Coleman.
.